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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23350477">Violet Dust and Limitless Power</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDefenderoftheFaith/pseuds/TheDefenderoftheFaith'>TheDefenderoftheFaith</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, But after the episode, Don actually died and people need to care, Donnie angst, Episode: s04e22 The Power Inside Her, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Metalhead 3.0, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Repercussions, The Power Inside Her, trying to come to terms with possible death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 09:46:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,623</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23350477</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDefenderoftheFaith/pseuds/TheDefenderoftheFaith</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Some days it feels like when April put him back together she missed some of the pieces. Some days Donnie will be lying in bed and feel the thrumming of tainted power burning through his skin. Some days Donnie thinks that if he doesn’t focus on holding himself together, he’ll just fall apart, fall to pieces, disintegrate into nothing and stop existing.</p><p>But he says he's okay. And everyone just... believes it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>43</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Some days it feels like when April put him back together she missed some of the pieces. Some days Donnie will be lying in bed and feel the thrumming of tainted power burning through his skin. Some days Donnie thinks that if he doesn’t focus on holding himself together, he’ll just fall apart, fall to pieces, disintegrate into nothing and <em> stop </em> existing.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t tell his brothers. He doesn’t tell his brothers a lot of things. Things like the chances that they will all live to reach 20 (2.0015%), that if the mutagen spill that got into the water supply diluted then it might have gotten into Mercy Hospital’s water supply and killed 23 patients. That he’s not actually a doctor and he doesn’t have real medical equipment. </p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t tell his brothers things they don’t need to know. They have enough to worry about as it is. This is just another burden for him to carry. </p><p> </p><p>The phantoms are getting worse, though. And watching his brothers die againandagainandagain is doing nothing for his anxiety. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Leo and his katana move as one, fluid and untouchable as the wind and devastating as a hurricane. A krang fires at his head, and he ducks. His sword slices dead center; the krang screeches as it’s body is destroyed. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Donnie watches as Leo doesn’t duck in time, the blast catching him in the head, turning it into a melted, caved in hulk of bone and charred flesh. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The krang manages one more shot as it’s severed body falls to the ground and Leo dodges, slicing away the arms and impaling the metalic head in one smooth motion. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Donnie watches as Leo doesn’t notice the blast, catching him in the back of the neck, splintering the unprotected spine and splitting the burnt skin like silly putty stretched too thin. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Leo dances away and begins again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Raph is an earthquake. Unstoppable and rampantly destructive. He’s having fun. There is little beauty in what he does, only the abstract art of wanton destruction. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He launches himself into two droids at once, his sai burying themselves in the bodies of two more krang. They spasm and spark and stop moving. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Donnie watches Raph misjudge his timing; one krang has enough time to turn it’s gun to his head and FIRE - </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Mikey is a whirlpool, cheer deceptive as still waters while sucking anything that comes near him into his inescapable blur of destruction. He moves almost too fast to track, leaping and flying, kusarigama flickering in and out like the tentacles of some great Kraken, twisting-crushing-tearing as his manic laughter leaps from one shadow to the blinding fluorescent lights. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Donnie watches him leave himself open to a hail of fire, watches him fall from the ceiling and land on his neck. Donnie watches Mikey flitter his way into a corner, watches him taken by surprise, watches him misjudge his landing, loose his footing, have his nunchucks yanked away, stuck in metal scrap and leaving him </span>
  <em>
    <span>vulnerable</span>
  </em>
  <span>- </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
  <em>
    <span>SCRATK</span>
  </em>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Keep your head in the </span>
  <em>
    <span>game</span>
  </em>
  <span>, would you, Donnie?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Don nods, mute, at Raph’s admonishment, and watches Raph fail to turn around in time to deflect a shot at his head. The translucent Raphael falls to the ground, and Donnie can almost feel the blood seep between his toes, into the wrappings on his feet… </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Are you alright?” Leo is worried. Don needs to focus. He manages a smile, deflecting shot after shot with his staff. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Fine, Leo. Just got a lot on my mind.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Well if you could try to live in the present, that would be great.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Real-Leo was stepping in Not-Mikey’s stomach and it was very distracting. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Don nods because there’s no other real response available and tries to avoid the phantom corpses littering the floor to run to Mikey’s side. Mikey considers even a fight against the krang viable as brotherly bonding time. Since it seems like fighting the krang is something they do every other day, this is probably just as well. </span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Donnie slowly unwound the bindings from his foot. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“How come you’re such a </span>
  <em>
    <span>germaphobe</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Don? You do this every time.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Well, Raph, some of us </span>
  <em>
    <span>like</span>
  </em>
  <span> being clean. Unlike certain other turtles I could mention.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Raph scoffed, as Don tossed the clean wrappings stubbornly soaked in phantom blood into the garbage. </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <span>Zanaran hadn’t been the beginning of the visions and phantoms, of his brilliant mind finding everything that could go wrong and </span>
  <em>
    <span>seeing</span>
  </em>
  <span> it even as his brothers lived in front of him… but she had made things a thousand times worse. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Chapter 3</b>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>The circuit board existed underneath Donatello’s fingers. His eyes told him so. His fingers stubbornly refused to communicate the ridges and bumps of circuitry in his hands. His hands didn’t recognize metal at all. They were numb, numb like they’d been iced, like he’d forced blocks of ice over them again and again, until they burned and whitened and numbed to sensation. Aware of pressure… but only barely. And nothing more. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But it wasn’t just that. Pinpricks, electricity, raging, slipping, rearing it’s head and firing the tiniest poison-tipped arrows all across his hands, stealing over his wrists, settling in his forearms. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His gaze shot over to his modified geiger counter and… radiation. Not nuclear, not quite psychic, but familiar, familiar to his lab ever since the equivalent of a human bomb had been set off inside, energy now coming… again… from him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His eyes squeezed shut and he </span>
  <em>
    <span>tried</span>
  </em>
  <span> to stay normal, in control… </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He could feel alien energy holding him together, stitching his atoms and DNA into a Donatello-shaped mold that burned his fingers, was too thin to hold him together, so micro-sharp it hurt, but too thick for him to </span>
  <em>
    <span>feel</span>
  </em>
  <span> anything against his shaking hands. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His chest clenched and suddenly </span>
  <em>
    <span>breathing </span>
  </em>
  <span>was a terror. His arms shook, and he didn’t know if he could just </span>
  <em>
    <span>put down</span>
  </em>
  <span> the machinery in his fingers. He could lower his hands. He did that. He opened them completely, watching the clatter of metal on his desk, hands fumbling clumsily to his ears, striking his face as he did. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The wind was very loud, here in the confines of his lab. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His legs gave out next, dropping him unceremoniously against the floor, and there </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> floor, there was </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span> to brace against to </span>
  <em>
    <span>be</span>
  </em>
  <span> against… there was something-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Donnie curled against his desk, knees tucking as close to his chest as he could get. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The buzzing enveloped his head, the buzzing, but… no No </span>
  <em>
    <span>NO</span>
  </em>
  <span> he wasn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>back</span>
  </em>
  <span> there it wasn’t the same he was just </span>
  <em>
    <span>panicking…</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Yes. Just a panic attack. Nothing serious. Focus, Donnie. Not there. Not anymore. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The buzzing doesn’t matter. Phantom sensations. They aren’t real. They mean nothing. Donnie feels something well up, bitter and bottled and </span>
  <em>
    <span>explosive</span>
  </em>
  <span>… he bites hard into his arm, unable to taste the wrappings around his wrist, and whatever sound he might have made is muffled into the blood on his tongue. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Thank goodness he remembers to lock his doors, now. He can only imagine Mikey’s cries at seeing his big brother torn apart in front of him… </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>No. No this isn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>logical</span>
  </em>
  <span> it’s over he’s… he’s… it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>over</span>
  </em>
  <span>… </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He closes his eyes because everything is too bright, and pushes his hands over his ears because everything is too loud. He can’t move. If he moves </span>
  <em>
    <span>things</span>
  </em>
  <span> will move over his fingers, his anything, and he </span>
  <em>
    <span>can’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> right now. He just can’t. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He squeezes his eyes shut tight, tight as they’ll go and tries so hard to breathe. There’s no reason not to be able to, it’s simple, he’s a ninja… </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But he chokes on absolutely nothing and looses his breath, the pins and needles that are nothing but the invention of his panicked mind rage in his head, tingling over his brain like his body was falling asleep from the top down and his </span>
  <em>
    <span>hands</span>
  </em>
  <span> they </span>
  <em>
    <span>hurt</span>
  </em>
  <span>, they’re pulling apart and burning up and this can’t just be him it isn’t just an attack it happens it keeps happening </span>
  <em>
    <span>whyWHY </span>
  </em>
  <span>did April do this to him </span>
  <em>
    <span>why</span>
  </em>
  <span> he loved her wasn’t it enough?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Why did April do this? Why did April do this? How could April do this? Donnie yanks at his thoughts, try to pull them away from April </span>
  <em>
    <span>it’s not her fault stop blaming her </span>
  </em>
  <b>yes it is it is her fault we told her to let it go so many times she could’ve done it them </b>
  <em>
    <span>no it can’t be it can’t be her fault why would she do this to me</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And Donnie is lying flat out on the ground and still in his ball but he </span>
  <em>
    <span>won’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> go into his shell he won’t he’s not an </span>
  <em>
    <span>animal</span>
  </em>
  <span> he won’t lower himself to that he’s a person people don’t, they wouldn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>breathe</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Stop thinking. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Just breathe. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s not working. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So keep trying. In and out. It’s dirty down here, on the floor. Donnie can feel every bit of dirt and loose stone that digs into his face, but he can’t feel a single thing from his body down. That’s not logical either. It isn’t logical to not be able to breathe. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He can. He will. Donnie shoves himself onto his back and forces in a breath, trying to stretch it out for as long as he can, trying to force it through his neck. His pathetic attempt at deep breathing completed, he did his best to swallow the air, forcing it down before exhaling, clamping his mouth shut to force the air out his nostrils. Again. Again. Again. Longer and longer every time. Again. Again. Again. He swallowed the built-up saliva, coughed, and started again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His breath was his. The horrible tingling energy in his hands was still there, but faded. His body was his own. He should get back to work before anyone knocked. Before anyone came and yelled at him for being so slow. For not taking work seriously enough. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Donatello stood up. Straightened his back. Ignored the trembling in his hands, the razor edge sensitivity that threatened to send him back into relapse at the slightest of provocations. And he went to work. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>If he focused, he could feel cold wind whipping around him. If he blocked out everything else, he could feel the icy bullets of rain. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Donatello lay in bed, eyes wide open and fixed on the ceiling, retracing cracks and stains he had memorized years ago. Arcane energy burned his skin, running in spiderweb patterns throughout his weightless body. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He felt a buzzing in his head, under his skin, confusing, disorienting, trying to lull him into relaxation, to release his stranglehold on life. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Donnie imagined choking the energy to death. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He couldn’t relax. It was waiting for that. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>April’s power… it stitched him back together, but it wasn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>right</span>
  </em>
  <span>. It wasn’t supposed to happen. He was supposed to be dead. And he wasn’t supposed to come back. Every time he began to drift off, he felt the electricity peak, just like the terrible infinite moment where he was suspended, high and helpless and </span>
  <em>
    <span>knowing</span>
  </em>
  <span> something was terribly wrong just before- </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Well, that part was hard to remember. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He understood what was happening, or at least he thought he did. That made it easier. It was just like what happened to Sensei. Shredder had killed him, during the Triceraton invasion, and they had fixed it, gone back in time. But the destruction of Earth, as Professor Honeycutt had put it, had been a focal point of time. A large event that could happen, or it could not. They had made it not happen. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But the time stream still wanted to flow, regardless of the major stones in it’s path. The little things, things that were supposed to happen, still would. People met each other, people were born. People died. Master Splinter died in almost the exact same way as he would have, and the time stream was corrected again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Donnie was supposed to die. Time said so. It happened, and it was big, and April’s unlimited power pulled him to pieces as she became one with the cosmos. And she tried to change it but… too little, too late. It was supposed to happen, now. There was a dead-Donatello shaped hole in the universe just waiting to be filled.  All that was left was to wait, and to plan.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>To be honest, Donnie was just thankful he had some measure of control over these… attacks. They’d tried to start in the middle of patrols before and… well, he could postpone them. It made things worse </span>
  <em>
    <span>later</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but then he could deal with them when they didn’t put his brothers in danger. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He hadn’t told them. How could he? How could he tell them that even though April had saved him… he was still dying? Faster and faster, every day a little worse… how could he tell Mikey that one day he might not be able to hold himself together any longer? How could he tell Raph that he might not always be strong enough? How could he tell Leo that there wouldn’t even be a body, just… violet dust. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Violet dust in the face of April’s limitless power.  </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Donnie patted the earth around the potted plant before walking over to the pulsating purple triangle and leaning in, placing the English Lavender inside the life support system he’d rigged inside Dimension X, and leaning back out again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He started the timer. This would be the 10th plant to undergo this test. He would place a plant inside a specialized aquarium that would provide light, water and nutrients, and leave it there for the equivalent of 30 years. If it came back like it’s predecessors, 30 years older but otherwise normal, then his results would all match up nicely. Donnie waited a little longer, then reached back inside the portal to retrieve the plant. Dimension Xs’ accelerated time stream certainly came in handy when determining the effects of aging on an organism. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Donnie placed the plant on his desk to study it. 30 years older… with no noticeable differences from a normal English Lavender of 30 years old. Conclusion? Donnie reached for a notepad and pencil. Dimension X did not affect the aging of an organism. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That meant the real point to his experiment could begin in earnest. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Donnie placed his arm on his desk, picked up a scalpel, and scraped. These tissue samples, provided with all necessary components for life by </span>
  <em>
    <span>it’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> own life support system, would show him his own projected lifespan. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>How long until… April really killed him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Donnie picked up the second life support system, switching it out with the one for the plants. He grabbed his tissue sample. Inserted it. And waited 50 years. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was gone. Dead.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Try again. 40 years. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dead. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Try again. 30 years. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dead. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Try again. 20 years. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dead. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Donnie crumpled, choking as his eyes clouded over. </span>
  <em>
    <span>No</span>
  </em>
  <span>. So </span>
  <em>
    <span>soon</span>
  </em>
  <span>… he forced himself to his feet. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Try again. 15 years. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Gone again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Again. 10 years. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dead.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Donnie’s fingers trembled as he set another sample and waited 5 years. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He dashed back to look, and watched, eyes wide, as his own flesh faded into nothing in front of him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So that was it, then. 5 years. 5. He was barely 17 and he had 5 years left. But… but he could fight the attacks. This mindless piece of himself… it couldn’t do that. He would outlast it, he would fight. So… Donnie choked, laughing. So, maybe 8 years? He didn’t know. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was going to die. Probably before he turned 30 years old. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Poor Donatello. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>How sadorable. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was going to die. Donnie curled in on himself, sobbing, a dimension and a chasm of ignorance between him and his family. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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